A performance at this year's The Big Sing event at Toitoi Hawke's Bay Opera House in Hastings. Photo / Paul Taylor
The Big Sing Cadenza is coming to the stage in Whanganui this month.
The Big Sing (TBS), New Zealand's largest choral event, has been run by the New Zealand Choral Federation for more than 25 years. Around 250-270 secondary school choirs, comprising some 10,000 singers, enter regional competitions held in
10 centres around the country, with the top 24 choirs being selected for the national finale and a further 36 choirs for Cadenza – 12 choirs for each of three Cadenzas.
TBS Cadenza will take place over two days in three centres, blending a formal, adjudicated competition with combined workshops and culminating in a gala concert. Whanganui has been again chosen to host the lower North Island choirs that qualified for this event, as it did for the inaugural event in August 2019.
The Singquistion Choir, directed by David Tipi, from Nga Tawa Diocesan School in Marton has been selected to take part along with 11 other choirs from Palmerston North, East Coast, Wellington and New Plymouth. The choirs' pieces are wide-ranging in style, from jazz, gospel and pop through to folk and classical music.
At the gala concert, each choir will showcase an item from its Cadenza repertoire and a massed choir of more than 300 voices will come together to perform at the end of the evening.
